New Oil Paintings in Studio

I have been trying for some time now to come up with a oil on canvas technique that would give me some of the same satisfaction I get from the temporary sand works.
Not wanting to do just paintings of text (pretty much did enough of that in the 1970's and 1980's), I started playing around with ways of making images using free sand in the mid 1990's.

The first time these sand-images were shown was as part of a solo exhibition in Geneva, Switzerland at Galerie Analix in 1996. Most of the show was still text oriented but these self-portraits did appear:

"Bring Me the Heads", 1996, 1M x 4M, tinted sand.

(Clicking on the image will enlarge it in a new JavaScript Popup window.)

Later that same year, I redid the self-portrait as a second work for the "De Rode Poort" show in Gent, Belgium. A larger version, also in free tinted sand, it was titled "Up Comes Chuck" as a sort of homage to Chuck Close. Impossible not to associate the use of pixels (or little piles of sand) to create a close up portrait without calling to mind the work of Chuck Close.
The actual influence was probably an article in Scientific American back in the mid 1970's about the image perception work done by Leon Harmon
or even the pixel work of Salvador Dali.

"Up Comes Chuck", 1996, 3.3M x 2.3M, sand and tinted sand.

After the turn of the Millennium, I began trying make actual oil paintings on canvas. It was only natural that I would continue with the pixel technique that most closely resembled the little piles of tinted sand.

(The images here below are only snapshots... just something to document the process of these new paintings.)

Oil on Canvas (Experiments)

Oil on Canvas (Landscapes)

In 2003, with the invasion of Iraq and Bush/Cheney administration attitudes towards Europe on my mind, I began work on plans for a re-design of the Statue of Liberty. The statue was closed for a year back then and covered in scaffolding for maintenence, so, in my mind anyway...
Below is a preliminary drawing. The work was realized in 2004 at an exhibition in Germany.

Drawing for "Failure of Liberty".

Peter Santino
March 6, 2015
Background photo on this page is of one of the early Statue of Liberty variations..